Critical Remarks on the National Question

4. “CULTURAL-NATIONAL AUTONOMY”

Thequestion of the “national culture” slogan is of enormous
importance to Marxists, not only because it determines the ideological
content of all our propaganda and agitation on the national question, as
distinct from bourgeois propaganda, but also because the entire programme
of the much-discussed cultural-national autonomy is based on this slogan.

Themain and fundamental flaw in this programme is that it aims at
introducing the most refined, most absolute and most extreme
nationalism. The gist of this programme is that every citizen registers as
belonging to a particular nation, and every nation constitutes a legal
entity with the right to impose compulsory taxation on its members,with national parliaments (Diets) and national secretaries of state
(ministers).

Suchan idea, applied to the national question, resembles Proudhon’s
idea, as applied to capitalism. Not abolishing capitalism and its
basis—commodity production—butpurgingthat basis of abuses,
of excrescences, and so forth; not abolishing exchange and exchange value,
but, on the contrary, making it “constitutional”, universal, absolute,
“fair”, and free of fluctuations, crises and abuses—such was
Proudhon’s idea.

Justas Proudhon was petty-bourgeois, and his theory converted exchange
and commodity production into an absolute category and exalted them as the
acme of perfection, so is the theory and programme of “cultural-national
autonomy” petty bourgeois, for it converts bourgeois nationalism into an
absolute category, exalts it as the acme of perfection, and purges it of
violence, injustice, etc.

Marxismcannot be reconciled with nationalism, be it even of the “most
just”, “purest”, most refined and civilised brand. In place of all forms
of nationalism Marxism advances internationalism, the amalgamation of all
nations in the higher unity, a unity that is growing before our eyes with
every mile of railway line that is built, with every international trust,
and every workers’ association that is formed (an association that is
international in its economic activities as well as in its ideas and aims).

Theprinciple of nationality is historically inevitable in bourgeois
society and, taking this society into due account, the Marxist fully
recognises the historical legitimacy of national movements. But to prevent
this recognition from becoming an apologia of nationalism, it must be
strictly limited to what is progressive in such movements, in order that
this recognition may not lead to bourgeois ideology obscuring proletarian
consciousness.

Theawakening of the masses from feudal lethargy, and their struggle
against all national oppression, for the sovereignty of the people, of the
nation, are progressive. Hence, it is the Marxist’sboundenduty
to stand for the most resolute and consistent democratism on all aspects of
the national question. This task is largely a negative one. But this is the
limit the proletariat can go to in supporting nationalism,for beyond that begins the “positive” activity of thebourgeoisiestriving tofortifynationalism.

Tothrow off the feudal yoke, all national oppression, and all
privileges enjoyed by any particular nation or language, is the imperative
duty of the proletariat as a democratic force, and is certainly in the
interests of the proletarian class struggle, which is obscured and retarded
by bickering on the national question. But to gobeyondthese
strictly limit ed and definite historical limits in helping bourgeois
nationalism means betraying the proletariat and siding with the
bourgeoisie. There is a border-line here, which is often very slight and
which the Bundists and Ukrainian nationalist-socialists completely lose
sight of.

Combatall national oppression? Yes, of course! Fightforany
kind of national development,for“national culture” in
general?—Of course not. The economic development of capitalist society
presents us with examples of immature national movements all over the
world, examples of the formation of big nations out of a number of small
ones, or to the detriment of some of the small ones, and also examples of
the assimilation of nations. The development of nationality in general is
the principle of bourgeois nationalism; hence the exclusiveness of
bourgeois nationalism, hence the endless national bickering. The
proletariat, however, far from undertaking to uphold the national
development of every nation, on the contrary, warns the masses against such
illusions, stands for the fullest freedom of capitalist intercourse and
welcomes every kind of assimilation of nations, except that which is
founded on force or privilege.

Consolidatingnationalism within a certain “justly” delimited sphere,
“constitutionalising” nationalism, and securing the separation of all
nations from one another by means of a special state institution—such is
the ideological foundation and content of cultural-national autonomy. This
idea is thoroughly bourgeois and thoroughly false. The proletariat cannot
support any consecration of nationalism; on the contrary, it supports
everything that helps to obliterate national distinctions and remove
national barriers; it supports everything that makes the ties between
nationalities closer and closer, or tends to merge nations. Toact differently means siding with reactionary nationalist philistinism.

When,at their Congress in
Br\"unn[2](in 1899), the Austrian Social-Democrats discussed the plan
for cultural-national autonomy, practically no attention was paid to a
theoretical appraisal of that plan. It is, however, note worthy that the
following two arguments were levelled against this programme:
(1) it would tend to strengthen clericalism;
(2) “its result would be the perpetuation of chauvinism, its introduction
into every small community, into every small group” (p. 92 of the official
report of the Br\"unn Congress, in German. A Russian translation was
published by the Jewish nationalist party, the
J.S.L.P.[3]).

Therecan be no doubt that “national culture”, in the ordinary sense
of the term, i. e., schools, etc., is at present under the predominant
influence of the clergy and the bourgeois chauvinists in all countries in
the world. When the Bundists, in advocating “cultural-national” autonomy,
say that the constituting of nations will keep the class struggle within
themcleanof all extraneous considerations, then that is manifest
and ridiculous sophistry. It is primarily in the economic and political
sphere that a serious class struggle is waged in any capitalist society. To
separate the sphere of educationfrom thisis, firstly, absurdly
utopian, because schools (like “national culture” in general) cannot be
separated from economics and politics; secondly, it is the economic and
political life of a capitalist country thatnecessitatesat every
step the smashing of the absurd and outmoded national barriers and
prejudices, whereas separation of the school system and the like, would
only perpetuate, intensify and strengthen “pure” clericalism and “pure”
bourgeois chauvinism.

Onthe boards of joint-stock companies we find capitalists of different
nations sitting together in complete harmony. At the factories workers of
different nations work side by side. In any really serious and profound
political issue sides are taken according to classes, not nations. With
drawing school education and the like from state control and placing it
under the control of the nations is in effect an attempt toseparatefrom economics, which unites the nations, the most
highly, so to speak, ideological sphere of sociallife, the sphere in which “pure” national culture or the national
cultivation of clericalism and chauvinism has the freest play.

Inpractice, the plan for “extra-territorial” or “cultural
national” autonomy could mean only one thing:the division of
educational affairs according to nationality, i.e., the introduction
of national curias in school affairs. Sufficient thought to therealsignificance of the famous Bund plan will enable one to
realise how utterly reactionary it is even from the standpoint of
democracy, let alone from that of the proletarian class struggle for
socialism.

Asingle instance and a single scheme for the “nationalisation” of
the school system will make this point abundantly clear. In the United
States of America the division of the States into Northern and Southern
holds to this day in all departments of life; the former possess the
greatest traditions of freedom and of struggle against the slave-owners;
the latter possess the greatest traditions of slave ownership, survivals of
persecution of the Negroes, who are economically oppressed and culturally
backward (44 per cent of Negroes are illiterate, and 6 per cent of whites),
and so forth. In the Northern States Negro children attend the same schools
as white children do. In the South there are separate “national”, or
racial, whichever you please, schools for Negro children. I think that this
is the sole instance of actual “nationalisation” of schools.

InEastern Europe there exists a country where things like the Beilis
case[4]are still possible, and Jews are condemned by the Purishkeviches
to a condition worse than that of the Negroes. In that country a scheme fornationalising Jewish schoolswas recently mooted in the
Ministry. Happily, this reactionary utopia is no more likely to be realised
than the utopia of the Austrian petty bourgeoisie, who have despaired of
achieving consistent democracy or of putting an end to national bickering,
and have invented for the nations school-educationcompartmentsto
keep them from bickeringover the distributionof schools ... but
have “constituted” themselves for aneternalbickering of one
“national culture” with another.

InAustria, the idea of cultural-national autonomy has remained largely
a flight of literary fancy, which the AustrianSocial-Democrats themselves have not taken seriously. In Russia, however,
it has been incorporated in the programmes of all the Jewish bourgeois
parties, and of several petty-bourgeois, opportunist elements in the
different nations—for example, the Bundists, the liquidators in the
Caucasus, and the conference of Russian national parties of the
Left-Narodnik trend. (This conference, we Will mention parenthetically,
took place in 1907, its decision being adoptedwith abstentionon
the part of the Russian
Socialist-Revolutionaries[5]and the
P.S.P.,[6]the Polish social-patriots. Abstention from voting is a
method surprisingly characteristic of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
P.S.P., when they want to show their attitude towards a most important
question of principle in the sphere of the national programme!)

InAustria it was Otto Bauer, the principal theoretician of
“cultural-national autonomy”, who devoted a special chapter of his book
to prove that such a programme cannot possibly be proposed for the Jews. In
Russia, however, it is precisely among the Jews that all the bourgeois
parties—and the Bund which echoes them—have adopted this
			      programme.[1]What does this go to show? It goes to show that history, through the
political practice of another state, has exposed the absurdity of Bauer’s
invention, in exactly the same way as the Russian Bernsteinians (Struve,
Tugan-Baranovsky, Berdayev and Co.), through their rapid evolutionfrom Marxism to liberalism, have exposed the real ideological content of
the German
Bernsteinism.[7]

Neitherthe Austrian nor the Russian Social-Democrats have incorporated
“cultural-national” autonomy in their programme. However, the Jewish
bourgeois parties in a most backward country, and a number of
petty-bourgeois, so-called socialist groupshave adopted itin
order to spread ideas of bourgeois nationalism among the working class in a
refined form. This fact speaks for itself.

Sincewe have bad to touch upon the Austrian programme on the national
question, we must reassert a truth which is often distorted by the
Bundists. At the Br\"unn Congress apureprogramme of
“cultural-national autonomy”waspresented. This was the
programme of the South-Slav Social Democrats, § 2 of which reads:
“Every nation living in Austria, irrespective of the territory occupied by
its members, constitutes an autonomous group which manages all its national
(language and cultural) affairs quite independently.” This programme was
supported, not only by Kristan but by the influential Ellenbogen. But it
was withdrawn; not a single vote was cast for it. Aterritorialistprogramme was adopted, i. e., one that did not createanynational
groups “irrespective of the territory occupied by the members of the
nation”.

Clause3of the adopted programme reads: “The self governingregionsof one and the same nation shall jointly form a nationally
united association, which shall manage its national affairs on an
absolutely autonomous basis” (cf.Prosveshcheniye, 1913, No. 4,
p. 28[8]). Clearly, this compromise programme is wrong too. An example
will illustrate this. The German colonists’ community in Saratov Gubernia,
plus the German working-class suburb of Riga or Lodz, plus the German
housing estate near St. Petersburg, etc., would constitute a “nationally
united association” of Germans in Russia. Obviously the Social-Democrats
cannotdemandsuch a thing orenforcesuch an
association, although of course they do not in the least denyfreedomof every kind of association, including associations of
any communities of any nationality in a given state. Thesegregation, by a law of the state, of Germans, etc., in different
localities and of different classes in Russia into a single German-national
association may be practised by anybody—priests, bourgeois or
philistines, but not by Social-Democrats.

[1]Thatthe Bundists often vehemently deny thatallthe Jewish
bourgeois parties have accepted “cultural-national autonomy” is
understandable. This fact only too glaringly exposes the actual role being
played by the Bund. When Mr. Manin, a Bundist, tried, inLuch[9]to repeat his denial, he was fully exposed by N. Skop
(seeProsveshcheniyeNo. 3[10]). But when Mr. Lev Yurkevich, inDzvin(1913,
Nos. 7–8, p. 92), quotes fromProsveshcheniye(No. 3, p. 78)
N. Sk’s statement that “the Bundists together with all the Jewish
bourgeois parties and groups have long been advocating cultural-national
autonomy” anddistortsthis statement bydroppingthe
word “Bundists”, andsubstitutingthe words “national rights”
for the words “cultural national autonomy”, one can only raise one’s
hands in amazement! Mr. Lev Yurkevich is not only a nationalist, not only
an astonishing ignoramus in matters concerning the history of the
Social-Democrats and their programme, but adownright falsifier of
quotationsfor the benefit of the Bund. The affairs of the Bund and
the Yurkeviches must be in a bad way indeed!  —Lenin

[2]Thisrefers to the Congress of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party
held in Br\"unn (Austria) from September 24 to 29, 1899 (new style). The
national question was the chief item on the agenda. Two resolutions
expressing different points of view were submitted to the Congress: =

(1) the resolution of the Party’s Central Committee supporting the idea of
the territorial autonomy of nations, and =

(2) the resolution of the Committee of the South-Slav Social-Democratic
Party supporting the idea of extra-territorial cultural-national autonomy.

TheCongress unanimously rejected the programme of cultural-national
autonomy, and adopted a compromise resolution recognising national autonomy
within the boundaries of the Austrian state. (See Lenin’s article “A
Contribution to the History of the National Program me in Austria and in
Russia”, pp. 36 of this volume.)

[3]J.S.L.P.(Jewish Socialist Labour Party)—a petty-bourgeois
nationalist organisation, founded in 1906. Its programme was based on the
demand for national autonomy for the Jews—the creation of
extra-territorial Jewish parliaments authorised to settle questions
concerning the political organisation of Jews in Russia. The J.S.L.P. stood
close to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, with whom it waged a struggle
against the R.S.D.L.P.

[4]TheBeilis case—a provocative trial engineered by the
tsarist government in 1913 in Kiev. Beilis, a Jew, was falsely accused of
having murdered a Christian boy named Yushchinsky for ritual purposes
(actually, the murder was organised by the Black Hundreds). The aim of this
frame-up was to fan anti-Semitism and incite pogroms so as to divert the
masses from the mounting revolutionary movement. The trial excited great
public feeling. Workers’ protest demonstrations were held in a number of
cities.  Beilis was acquitted.

[5]Socialist-Revolutionaries—a petty-bourgeois party in Russia,
which came into being at the end of 1901 and beginning of 4902 as a result
of a merger of various Narodnik groups and circles. The S.R.s saw no class
distinctions between the proletarian and the petty proprietor, played down
the class differentiation and antagonisms within the peasantry, and refused
to recognise the proletariat’s leading role in the revolution. Their views
were an eclectic mixture of the ideas of Narodism and revisionism. In
Lenin’s words, they tried, to mend “the rents in the Narodnik Ideas with
bits of fashionable opportunist ‘criticism’ of Marxism.” (See present
edition, Vol. 9, p. 310.)

TheSocialist-Revolutionaries’ agrarian programme envisaged the
abolition of private ownership of the land, which was to be transferred to
the village commune on the basis of the “labour principle” and
“equalised land tenure” and also the development of co-operatives. This
programme, which the S.R.s called “socialisation of the land”, had
nothing socialist about it. In his analysis of this programme, Lenin showed
that the preservation of commodity production and private farming on
communal land would not do away with the domination of capital or free the
toiling peasantry from exploitation and impoverishment. Neither could the
co-operatives be a remedy for the small farmers under capitalism, as they
served only to enrich the rural bourgeoisie. At the same time, as Lenin
pointed out, the demand for equalised land tenure, though not socialistic,
was of a progressive, revolutionary-democratic character, inasmuch as it
was directed against reactionary landlordism.

TheBolshevik Party exposed the attempts of the S.R.s to pass
themselves off as socialists. It waged a stubborn fight against them for
influence over the peasantry, and revealed the damage their tactic of
individual terrorism was causing the working-class movement. At the same
time, the Bolsheviks, on definite terms, entered into temporary agreements
with the Socialist-Revolutionaries to combat tsarism.

TheSocialist-Revolutionary Party’s political and ideological
instability and organisational incohesion, as well as its constant
vacillation between the liberal bourgeoisie and the proletariat, were due
to the absence of class homogeneity among the peasantry. During the first
Russian revolution, the Right wing of the S.R.s broke away from the party
and formed the legal Labour Popular Socialist Party, whose views were close
to those of the Constitutional-Democrats(Cadets), while the Left wing split away and formed a semi-anarchist league
of “Maximalists”. During the period of the Stolypin reaction, the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party suffered a complete break-down ideologically
and organisationally. During the First World War most of its members took a
social-chauvinist stand.

Afterthe February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917 the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, together with the Mensheviks and the Cadets,
were the mainstay of the counter-revolutionary Provisional Government of
the bourgeoisie and landlords. The leaders of the S.R. Party—Kerensky,
Avksentyev and Chernov—were members of this Cabinet. The S.R. Party
refused to support the peasants’ demand for the abolition of landlordism,
and stood for the preservation of landlord ownership. The S.R. members of
the Provisional Government authorised punitive action against peasants who
had seized landed estates.

Atthe end of November 1917 the Left win of the S.R. Party formed an
independent party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who, in an endeavour
to preserve their influence among the peas ant masses, formally recognised
Soviet rule and entered into an agreement with the Bolsheviks. Shortly,
however, they began a struggle against the Soviets.

Duringthe years of foreign intervention and the Civil War the S.R.s
carried on counter-revolutionary subversive activities. They actively
supported the interventionists and whiteguards, took part in
counter-revolutionary plots, and organised terroristic acts against leaders
of the Soviet state and the Communist Party. After the Civil War, the S.R.s
continued their anti-Soviet activities within the country and in the camp
of the White émigrés.

[6]ThePolish Socialist Party(Polska Partia Socjalistyczna)—a
reformist nationalist organisation founded in 1892. Adopting the slogan of
struggle for an independent Poland, the P.S.P., under Pilsudski and his
adherents, carried on separatist nationalist propaganda among the Polish
workers, whom they tried to divert from the joint struggle with the Russian
workers against the autocracy and capitalism. Throughout the history of the
P.S.P. Left-wing groups kept springing up within the party, as a result of
the activities of the rank-and-file workers. Some of these groups
eventually joined the revolutionary wing of the Polish working-class
movement.

In1906 the party split up into the P.S.P. Left wing and the Right,
chauvinist wing (the so-called “revolutionary faction”).  Under the
influence of the Bolsheviks and the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and
Lithuania, the Left wing gradually adopted a consistent revolutionary
stand.

Duringthe First World War some of the P.S.P. Left-wing adopted an
internationalist stand. In December 1918 it united with the
Social-Democrats of Poland and Lithuania to form the Communist Workers’
Party of Poland (as the Communist Party of Poland was known up to 1925).

Duringthe First World War, the P.S.P. flight wing continued its policy
of national chauvinism, organising Polish legions on the territory of
Galicia to fight on the side of Austin-German imperialism. With the
formation of the Polish bourgeois state, the Right P.S.P. in 1919 united
with the P.S.P. organisations existing on Polish territories formerly
seized by Germany and Austria, and resumed the name of the P.S.P. At the
head of the government, it arranged for the transfer of power to the Polish
bourgeoisie, systematically carried on anti-communist propaganda, and
supported a policy of aggression against the Soviet Union, a policy of
conquest and oppression against Western Ukraine and Western
Byelorussia. Various groups in the P.S.P. who disagreed with this policy
joined the Communist Party of Poland.

AfterPilsudski’s fascist coup d’état (May 1926), the P.S.P. was
nominally a parliamentary opposition, but actually it did not carry on any
active fight against the fascist regime, and continued its anti-communist
and anti-Soviet propaganda. During that period the Left-wing elements of
the P.S.P. collaborated with the Polish Communists and supported
united-front tactics in a number of campaigns.

Duringthe Second World War the P.S.P. again split up. Its reactionary
and chauvinist faction, which assumed the name “Wolność,
Równosc, Niepodłeglość” (Liberty,
Equality, Independence), took part in the reactionary Polish
émigré “government” in London. The Left faction, which
called itself the Workers’ Party of Polish Socialists, under the influence
of the Polish Workers’ Party, which was founded in 1942, joined the popular
front against the Nazi invaders, fought for Poland’s liberation, and
pursued a policy of friendly relations with the U.S.S.R.

In1944, after the liberation of Poland’s eastern territories and the
formation of a Polish Committee of National Liberation, the Workers’ Party
of Polish Socialists resumed the name of P.S.P. and together with the
P.W.P. participated in the building up of a people’s democratic Poland. In
December 1948 the P.W.P. and the P.S.P. amalgamated and formed the Polish
United Workers’ Party.

[9]Luch(Ray)—a legal daily of the Menshevik
liquidators, published in St. Petersburg from September 16(29), 1912 to
July 5(18), 1913. Put out 237 issues. The newspaper was maintained chiefly
by contributions from the liberals. Ideological leadership was in the bands
of P. B. Axelrod, F. I. Dan, L. Martov, and A. S. Martynov. The liquidators
used the columns of this newspaper to oppose the revolutionary tactics of
the Bolsheviks, advocate the opportunist slogan of an “open party”,
attack the revolutionary mass strikes of the workers, and attempt to revise
the most important points of the Party Programme. Lenin wrote thatLuchwas “enslaved by a liberal policy” and called the paper a
mouthpiece of the renegades.

[10]Prosveshcheniye(Enlightenment)—a Bolshevik, legal
theoretical monthly, published in St. Petersburg from December 1911 to
June 1914, with a circulation of up to five thousand copies.

Thejournal was founded on Lenin’s initiative to replace the
Moscow-publishedMysl, a Bolshevik journal which was closed down
by the tsarist government. Other workers on the new journal were
V. V. Vorovsky, A. I. Ulyanova-Yelizarova, N. K. Krupskaya and
others. Lenin enlisted the services of Maxim Gorky to run the journal’s
literary section. Lenin directedProsveshcheniyefrom Paris and
subsequently from Cracow and Poronin. He edited articles and regularly
corresponded with the editorial staff. The journal published the following
articles by Lenin: “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of
Marxism”, “Critical Remarks on the National Question”, “The Right of
Nations to Self-Determination”, “Disruption of Unity Under Cover of
Outcries for Unity” and others.

Thejournal exposed the opportunists—the liquidators, otzovists, and
Trotskyists, as well as the bourgeois nationalists. It highlighted the
struggle of the working class under conditions of a new revolutionary
upsurge, propagandised Bolshevik slogans in the Fourth Duma election
campaign, and came out against revisionism and centrism in the parties of
the Second International. The journal played an important role in the
Marxist inter nationalist education of the advanced workers of Russia.

Onthe eve of World War I,Prosveshcheniyewas closed down by
the tsarist government. It resumed publication in the autumn of 1917, but
only one issue (a double one) appeared, containing Lenin’s “Can the
Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” and “A Review of the Party Programme”.

[7]Bernsteinism—an anti-Marxist trend in international
Social-Democracy. It arose towards the close of the nineteenth century in
Germany and bore the name of the German opportunist Social-Democrat Eduard
Bernstein. After the death of F. Engels, Bernstein publicly advocated
revision of Marx’s revolutionary theory in the spirit of bourgeois
liberalism (see his article “Problems of Socialism” and his bookThe
Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social-Democracy) in an attempt
to convert the Social-Democratic Party into a petty-bourgeois party of
social reforms. In Russia this trend was represented by the “legal
Marxists”, the Economists, the Bundists; and the Mensheviks.

[8]Leninrefers to Stalin’s article “Marxism and the National Question”
published in the legal Bolshevik journalProsveshcheniye, Nos. 3,
4 and 5 for 1913 under the title “The National Question and
Social-Democracy”. Chapter 4 of Stalin’s article quotes the text of the
national programme adopted at the Br\"unn Congress of the Austrian
Social-Democratic Party.